Election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is one of the nation’s most prestigious honors, recognizing extraordinary contributions across academia, the arts, public affairs, and science. Election is both a recognition of profound achievement and an invitation to help shape the intellectual and civic future of the nation. Anne McCoy, Natt-Lingafelter Professor of Chemistry, is among the new class of nearly 250 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
“These new members’ accomplishments speak volumes about the human capacity for discovery, creativity, leadership, and persistence. They are a stellar testament to the power of knowledge to broaden our horizons and deepen our understanding,” said Academy President Laurie L. Patton.
McCoy’s research focuses on the development of theoretical and computational approaches that allows her to investigate molecules and complexes that undergo large amplitude vibrational motions even at low levels of excitation. These processes are important in a variety of contexts, including systems of interest in astrochemistry, atmospheric chemistry, and in combustion processes. McCoy’s theoretical and computational tools also allow her and others to probe more fundamental phenomena, such as hydrogen bonding or long-range charge transfer for which standard tools are insufficient, making them particularly interesting from a theoretical perspective. In choosing problems to study, the McCoy group focuses on systems that have been studied or are currently being studied by their experimental collaborators or are potential targets for future experimental investigation.
McCoy’s research has recently been recognized with the Herschbach Medal for theory from the Conference on the Dynamics of Molecular Collisions (2025), the Jack Simons Award for Theoretical Chemistry (2022) and the Francis P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal (2021) from the American Chemical Society (ACS). She is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award and has presented named lectures at multiple institutions.
McCoy is a member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Chemical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. From 2005-2011, she was a senior editor for the Journal of Physical Chemistry and served as the deputy editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry-A from 2011-2020. In addition, she was a member of the ACS Committee on Professional Training from 2008-2018, and chaired the committee from 2012-2014. McCoy has been active in the physical division of the ACS, serving as secretary/treasurer from 2006-2011 and as an officer from 2016-2021. Since 2021, McCoy has served as an officer of the Division of Chemical Physics of the American Physical Society.
The American Academy was founded in 1780, during the American Revolution, by John Adams, John Hancock, and 60 other scholar-patriots who understood that a new republic would require institutions able to gather knowledge and advance learning in service to the public good. Current areas of focus include arts and humanities; democracy and justice; education; energy and environment; global affairs; and science and technology.
Members of the 2025 class include UW Professor of Neurobiology & Biophysics Rachel O. Wong, as well as winners of the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, Wolf Prize in Chemistry, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Erasmus Prize, Peabody Awards, James Beard Awards, and an EGOT.